


With Such a Wistful Eye

by Scruggzi



Series: The Devil's Own Brigade [2]
Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Angst, Bi Jack, Coming Out, F/M, Gossip, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, MFMM Year of Tropes, Romance, The anti-sodomy laws were some serious bullshit, URST (or is it?), War Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2019-01-01 00:11:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12144234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scruggzi/pseuds/Scruggzi
Summary: Snuggled away in a London hotel, safe (naked), and far away from the world, Jack tells Phryne a story from his past that he has never shared with anyone before.





	With Such a Wistful Eye

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Inzannatea (Zanna23)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zanna23/gifts), [Fire_Sign](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Sign/gifts).



“I think Mac is involved with someone,” Phryne observed, folding up the letter she had been reading and replacing it in the envelope.

“She put that in a letter?” Jack was surprised; he had always assumed Dr MacMillan would be more discreet in her private affairs, given the consequences for her career if any romantic relationship were made public, and Phryne’s habit of making enemies of those with unscrupulous or criminal intent did not make her the safest correspondent.

“Oh no. I’ll have to wait until we get back to Melbourne to confirm it,” his partner replied, “but she’s complaining about the nosiness of her colleagues and the tiresome nature of the hospital rumour mill. I just made a deduction.”

“Oh,” Jack nodded in acknowledgement, put his book down, and rolled over in bed to face her.

“After Daisy, I made her promise not to keep that sort of thing to herself. She should know she doesn’t have to hide from her friends.” Phryne’s voice was matter of fact, but there was a sadness to it as well. There was a freedom she had, to walk down the street holding her lover’s hand, to kiss him on the banks of the Thames as they rang in a new decade in style; Mac might never have that freedom, although with any luck the world was changing.

It wasn’t fair. Very little was.

Jack reached out to stroke Phryne’s cheek, rousing her from her reverie. “She’s faced worse. Mac can handle a bit of idle gossip.” He felt a little guilty as he remembered Dr MacMillan’s dry, sarcastic laugh the day he’d had to arrest her - as if she had no expectation that the world would ever deal her a better hand.

“She shouldn’t have to.” There was a hint of defiance in Phryne's response but no hostility; she was preaching to the converted and she knew it.

“No,” he agreed.

Jack tilted his head on one side, a curious expression lingering around his eyes and the downturned corners of his mouth.

“Did you ever…?” he stopped, unsure if it was really any of his business.

“With _Mac_?” Phryne laughed, deeply amused and not in the least offended. “No darling, not with her.” There was a certain inflection to that sentence.

“But with someone else, another woman?” the idea was intriguing and rather more titillating than he would like to admit, and Phryne’s knowing smirk suggested that she had accurately detected all manner of illicit imaginings in the widening of his eyes. Her tone when she answered however, was matter of fact.

“One or two, when I was in Paris. An interesting experience at the time, but not something that really held my attention.”

He nodded thoughtfully, considering the information before filing the away for in depth perusal later. Phryne suspected there was an entire case file on her lurking somewhere in her Inspector’s head. She hoped he realised what he was in for, she had secrets enough to fill at least a filing cabinet if he really wanted to hear them all.

“And what about you, Inspector?” she teased. “Have you ever embraced forbidden love?”

She meant it as a joke, but one look at his face took the laughter from her voice.

Jack’s expression was…complex. Sadness was there, nostalgia maybe, and perhaps regret, but also a kind of temptation, the desire to let go of some long held secret he had buried deep but not forgotten. Phryne rearranged herself so she was snuggled into the crook of his arm, able to lift her head to look at him, or rest it on his bare chest where she could feel the steady beat of his heart against her cheek.

“I imagine that’s quite a tale, Jack.”

She wasn’t exactly asking for the story. She was letting him know he could tell it, if he wanted to, in safety and without judgement. There were many things she knew she would never be able to give this man, but that, that was a gift that she could bestow easily, willingly, and one she knew no other person had ever truly given him. They had actually made pact, the first night they spent together in London; lying naked and happily cocooned in warm blankets and well insulated against the chill November sleet that spattered the windows. They agreed that night that there would be no secrets between them. They were partners, they trusted each other implicitly; when they were together, like this - away from the whispers and the watchful gaze of any who might judge them - there was nothing that could not be said in safety.

They had shared only small confessions up till now; quirks and kinks that might have caused embarrassment in front of another audience, but had instead been preludes to all manner of unexpected intimacies and pleasures. This was different; Jack appeared to be wavering, debating whether or not this was the time to attempt a more strenuous test of that commitment. His voice when he spoke was hesitant, but Phryne could tell he was drawn to the idea of revealing this part of himself to her.  

“I’m not sure how much of a tale it is. Certainly not as debauched as some of yours.” He twitched a tiny smile at her, letting her know that whilst there was pain here, it was old pain, long since scarred over.

“Oh?” she offered gentle encouragement.

“And I don’t think I would use the word _embraced_.”

If he was reaching for a word he could use, he seemed unable to find it; Phryne probed a little deeper.

“But there was someone, a man, who you had feelings for?”

He nodded, the smallest movement of his head holding all the magnitude of a confession he had never made to another living soul. He felt it as a kind of relief, even if the memories that came with it scraped over old wounds he had habitually avoided tearing open.

He had not thought about Alex in a long time.

Jack was silent for several minutes, long enough that Phryne wondered if he would speak at all. She did not push, just lay with her head on his chest, stroking softly along his arm, letting him know he could speak or not, and either way she would not take offence. When he spoke his voice was hoarse, almost hesitant, but it also held a certainty that let her know he had made his decision. That willingness to let go of his customary caution and let her see this long-buried part of himself meant more to Phryne than she could ever put into words. She compensated by taking his hand in both of hers, squeezing it and holding it to her lips, her head still resting against his chest and hoped he understood.

Jack kissed her hair in acknowledgement before beginning his story.

“It was during the war,” he explained, and Phryne could tell from the way he said it that this tale would not have a happy ending.

_Lance Corporal Robinson had been a soldier for longer than he had been a husband. The war, which everyone had said would be over by Christmas, had stretched from 1914 when he enlisted, to 1917, and still it showed no sign of ending; at least none that were visible to him from the bottom of a trench. There had been four of them when he shipped out, boys from the police academy he had known since childhood, all determined, in their naïve way, to do their bit for king and country. Now there was only him. He walked with the stench of death in his lungs every day and waited to join them. He no longer believed he would survive._

_Jack had been the joker of the group in the beginning, a young man only a few years out of his teens, not above pulling the odd prank on an unsuspecting officer if it promised a relief from the endless drudgery of mud and slaughter. He did not do that anymore; he rarely even smiled. Jack had retreated a long way down inside his head, leaving Lance Corporal Robinson to deal with the messy business of killing his fellow man en masse._

_He was a good soldier, more respected perhaps than liked by the other men in his unit; being as he was, an efficient, competent killer, although never a cruel one. He did his duty, he did not relish in it. They called him ‘Shiner’, after an incident when an officer, whose gleeful enthusiasm for death and destruction had long since crossed the border into macabre, had responded to his subordinate’s customary expression of resigned displeasure with the phrase ‘cheer up sunshine.’ Jack, resurfacing despite the best efforts of Lance Corporal Robinson, had responded with a miserable  frown, a dismally sarcastic ‘yes, sir’ and a look which nearly got him court martialled._

_He did not regret his lack of friends. Losing those he had been close to had been like losing limbs, hacked off one by one until he wasn’t certain if what was left really counted as Jack Robinson anymore. He read in quiet corners when he had no other duties to attend to, and thought about his wife. He had a picture of her from before he left, taken shortly after they were married. He was no longer certain how good a likeness it was. He worried that he could not remember with clarity the scent of her hair, or the taste of her lips late at night when he moved within her with all the tenderness and ardour of a young man in love._

_Rosie had become a dream, remote and beautiful as the stars sometimes visible in the night sky above the trenches. Untouched by the enormity of this war, real but unreachable. They shared letters, which he read and reread with the eagerness of all the men looking forward to news from home, but they did not share the horror he was mired in._

_His letters to her were censored, firstly by a wish to keep her safe and far away, perfect and untouched by all this death and madness; secondly by the state, which had its own reasons for keeping those secrets from the popular mind. Her letters to him were censored too; she wanted to support him, to send him something happy to hold onto. And so she let the ever present loss of her husband and her best friend become eclipsed in their one remaining connection, replaced by news of garden parties and charity functions attended with her parents. She told him her father had been promoted, this would be good for them when he returned, she insisted, it would help him in his career. Jack did not have the heart to tell her he doubted he would ever come home, nor that he didn’t care much for having his future planned out for him in his absence._

_Alex McGuff transferred into Jack’s unit towards the end of 1917. France was freezing, and the biting cold seeped into the pores and bones along with the mud. There was ice in the drinking water and nasty coughs and little fevers spread through the trenches, till the sound of hacking phlegm was as much a part of the background hum of war as the squelch of the wet ground underfoot._

_Jack was in his bunk reading; he looked up from his book on hearing someone enter the tent and saw a stranger with grubby brown hair and bright, inquisitive eyes that he would grow to know well. Years later he would think of them like this, sparkling and full of laughter; it was preferable to the alternative. Eventually, he decided it was better not to remember them at all._

_Jack nodded curtly; a new man, another dead man, as they all were. he wasn’t really interested and intended to return to his book but the man it seemed had other ideas._

_“You must be Shiner?”_

_Jack’s eyes flicked up from his book once again; apparently his reputation had preceded him._

_“So they tell me.” His voice was not intended to encourage this conversation, but the man either didn’t notice or was wilfully ignoring it._

_“Alex, McGuff,” he extended his hand and Jack shook it, feeling rough skin that felt surprisingly warm despite the freezing air._

_“What are you reading there, Shiner?”_

_He was starting to become annoying._

_“The Ballad of Reading Gaol.” Jack hoped that little titbit of information would be enough to shut the man up, but Alex’s face broke into a bright smile and he began to recite._

_“Some love too little, some too long,_

_Some sell, and others buy;_

_Some do the deed with many tears,_

_And some without a sigh:_

_For each man kills the thing he loves,_

_Yet each man does not die.”_

_His voice rose in pitch and became ever so slightly more refined as he reeled off the quotation, wearing an expression of amiable self-satisfaction at his own brilliance - as if Jack was a school master in a position to give him a favourable grade in an examination. As he came to a close he fixed Jack with a deeply smug look; when he spoke next his voice had dropped the hint of pretention._

_“It’s pretty I grant you, but still fucking depressing. No wonder you look so miserable. When it comes to Wilde I prefer the comedies myself, same goes for Shakespeare.”_

_Jack had to fight down a smile; there was something in that swift transition from soldier to scholar and back again which, despite his best efforts, he found inescapably entertaining. And so, entirely against his will, Lance Corporal Robinson had made a friend. He hadn’t exactly been given much of a choice._

Phryne looked up from her spot on his chest, her hand still stroking his arm.

“I’m very glad you did,” she told him honestly. “It was bad enough being there, without feeling like you were alone as well, and it sounds like he was good for you. Clearly he wasn’t interested in letting you sulk.”

That she would accept this deeply hidden part of him without question was not a surprise; but that she would offer Alex, or at least Jack’s memory of him, her unconditional solidarity, was a precious thing. It made it easier to keep talking, and he was no longer hesitant as he continued his story.

“It’s true. Those next few months were hell in so many ways, but it was better, having someone to talk to who cared about the things that mattered to me.”

 

“When did you realise that he was more than just a friend?” she was curious now. Her eyes, soft in the dim light of the hotel room, were fixed on his face, trying to read the things he could not put into words.

“I’m not sure exactly,” he admitted, considering the question more carefully now it had been posed by someone else than he had ever done before, trying to recall long supressed feelings, clouded and distorted by pain and the vagaries of memory.

“I’d never felt anything like that before, and the men I fought beside, that was already a unique kind of connection. I suppose you could say it crept up on me.”

Phryne held his gaze with a small smile, feeling an admiration and not a little pride; she had thought shame might have played a part in his initial reluctance to talk about this - God knew the world levelled more than enough of it when it disapproved of who and how a person loved - but now he had begun his story he did not seem at all ashamed. There was an analytical cast to his tone, as if he was thinking in depth about a part of his life he had not considered in a long time, reassessing it in the light of more recent evidence and the reality of the man he had become.

“How wonderfully Elizabeth Bennet of you, Jack,” she risked a tease, but it was a calculated risk and it won her a dry smile and a kiss.

“I believe starting romantic affairs with impertinence is more your style, Miss Fisher.” He retorted fondly.

“And is that what it was, with Alex, a romantic affair?” she sounded delighted by the prospect and Jack was almost sorry to have to disappoint her.

“I honestly couldn’t say for sure, certainly we never admitted so at the time. There were rumours about us though.”

_The transfer of a single soldier from another regiment was not unheard of, but it was uncommon enough to be a source of gossip. War was bitter and cruel, but there was a deadly tedium mixed with the terror, and anything and anyone that made for a source of entertainment was ruthlessly exploited. For the most part, Jack paid it no mind. Alex had told him he’d had a falling out with another soldier and had been transferred after getting into a fight. He implied that an officer who was present when the argument started had been sympathetic to his reasons. Jack suspected there was more to it than that, but was willing to give his friend the benefit of the doubt and never asked for details._

_Alex taught Jack drafts on an old set he had produced from gods knew where, and when off duty they would play for hours, sharing stories of home – Melbourne for Jack, Sydney for Alex – and the people they had left behind. Jack had played before as a child, but had never really understood the craft and strategy of the game. It was good to have something to focus on whilst they talked; Alex had a way of drawing out a smile from him even when, or especially when, he was determined not to let him. It was infuriating, and Jack was abundantly grateful for it._

_He told Alex about Rosie, about her letters and hopes for their future together, about how he could no longer see beyond survival for another hour, another day. Alex wasn’t married, although he had family back in Sydney who wrote to him. He said they wanted things for him he wasn’t sure he wanted for himself._

_“You can’t live a whole life for other people, Jack,” he had told him once._

_“Clearly, Alex, you are not a married man,” he had responded dryly, moving a white counter to the end of the board and requesting a king with a slant of his eyebrows._

_“True. Fuck it, lucky me I guess!” He met Jack’s eyes over their game board, a ridiculous, impish grin on his face, indulging in his tendency to make any misfortune or shortcoming seem like a personal victory._

_Jack couldn’t help himself, the guilty smile was playing around his eyes before he could turn his mouth down to banish it. Before long, he stopped feigning any kind of reprimand when Alex smiled at him like that. It felt good to smile again, and if he was going to be stuck in this godforsaken wasteland for the rest of his life he had no desire to feel guilty for the little bit of pleasure he found in a shared joke, or a conversation about Shakespeare, or the way Alex ran his fingers through his hair when thinking over a particularly knotty philosophical conundrum - such as abandoning one’s preference for well brewed tea when faced with the possibility of having hot tea served sooner. (This had been a true poser in the face of a cold winter.)_

_The other men talked of course. Alex was supposedly kicked out of his former regiment for crimes ranging from petty theft to buggery, and he apparently had something on one of the commanding officers which had guaranteed leniency when he was caught. There was talk about Jack too, although he managed mostly to ignore it; when asked, Alex said the gossip never bothered him, but Jack knew him well enough by then that he could tell the man was lying._

_It was a few months into their friendship when the dreams began. Jack dreamed of Alex the way he sometimes dreamed of Rosie; it was confused and unfocused at first, a strange mix of sensations without form, the touch of a hand, an imagined press of lips on his. Naturally he told no-one. As they grew clearer and more explicit the boundary between dream and fantasy began to blur. It was no longer Rosie he saw when he took himself in hand in his bunk, late at night, as all the soldiers did, seeking relief and release in the quiet and the dark. That did make him feel guilty, as if he was betraying his wife, allowing her to slip from his mind and heart where she should have a permanent, unassailable place._

_He wondered almost idly if these thoughts made him depraved; certainly many people would say so, especially the more religiously minded. It bothered him a little; he had never thought of himself as an immoral person before. Eventually, however, he came to the conclusion that he was not going to let it  trouble him unduly. No god who could look upon all this violence with equanimity, but would prescribe a burning hell as punishment for a little harmless attraction, was in any position to occupy the moral high ground as far as Jack was concerned. There were far better reasons for him to be damned, and he was hardly a religious man in the first place._

_And then there was the fight with Wilson._

_Richard ‘Dicky’ Wilson was not exactly a bad man, but he was an unpleasantly stupid one. His was not the viciousness of a bully who enjoys causing pain in others, but the boorishness of a fool without the emotional depth to understand when to keep his mouth shut, or how much a careless word could wound. He was the kind of man who could justify any petty cruelty as ‘just a bit of a laugh’._

_Jack was eating at a corner table in the mess, occasionally passing polite but disinterested conversation with his neighbours and hoping there would be time for a game of draughts when Alex came off watch, when Wilson took the seat next to him._

_“Alright, Shiner?” he was grinning, an inevitable prelude to some form of stupidity. As was opening his mouth._

_Jack nodded but did not respond, carefully moving his tea out of the way of Wilson’s clumsy arm as he set it down next to his plate._

_“Not with your boyfriend today then?” it was the playground logic, look for a weakness and exploit it, all in the name of entertainment._

_He should have just ignored him Jack knew, but there was something so objectionable about the man. He couldn’t help himself._

_“Why, are you jealous?” he spoke quietly enough that only Wilson heard him._

_“You what?” the man did not match him in volume, his indignant shout drawing the attention of the room._

_Jack looked at him blandly._

_“Much as this may shock you Wilson, it is possible to spend time with a person simply because you enjoy their company. I appreciate this may not be an experience you have had yourself, but let me assure you, it can happen.”_

_“Huh, yeah, right. Everyone knows that McGuff’s nothing but a stinking faggot, they should have fucking shot him...”_

_If Wilson had any more wise words to add to that observation he never got them out, because at that point Jack punched him in the face so hard he broke his nose._

_He was put on latrine duty for a month, and Wilson never spoke to him again._

Phryne was looking at Jack with unmistakable pride now.

“Fully justified in my opinion,” she told him sincerely. “If the army had any sense they’d have given you a medal.”

He chuckled slightly at her indignation on his behalf, running a hand absentmindedly up her back, enjoying the silk of her skin. It was an indescribable feeling to have her on his side, frank acceptance and unconditional support her instinctive response to a secret which would have elicited revulsion in many otherwise good people. He returned her look of admiration with one of love and gratitude, but she did not give him long to get lost in her eyes now she was invested in his story.

“So,” she prompted, “you began to realise you had feelings for him. As I imagine did every soldier in your unit after that display of gallantry. Did he return them?”

Jack tilted his head and raised a self-depreciating pair of eyebrows; somehow he had not considered that his response could be viewed as anything but a desire to defend his friend’s good name. He had done his level best not to think about the incident at all.

“Yes, I think so. Although we never exactly discussed it.”

They had come close though, now he came to think about it. Flirted with the truth, flirted in general, although he couldn’t remember ever thinking about it that way at the time.

“Good.” Said Phryne, decisively. “I would hate to think the man was a fool. What did he do when he found out you had been so chivalrously defending his honour?”

“Actually his response was not that different from yours…”

_The story was everywhere by the time Alex had come off watch. Jack was still receiving a thorough dressing down by the Lieutenant and Wilson had been moved to the infirmary. When Jack left the tent, his ears red, cursing his own stupidity for letting Wilson get a rise out of him, he found his friend waiting outside._

_“I heard you’d gone and gotten yourself in trouble, Jack.”_

_“No more than I deserved I’m sure.”_

_“I don’t know, breaking Dicky Wilson’s nose can only make the world a better fucking place as far as I’m concerned, should have gotten you a promotion.”_

_“Hmph. Unfortunately the Lieutenant disagrees. I’m going to be shovelling shit for the next month.”_

_“Jack?”_

_They were walking aimlessly away from the officers’ tent, back towards the watch posts, although neither of them were on duty. It was a dark night, the sickle moon giving off only a hint of light by which Jack could make out the expression on Alex’s face._

_“It’s not true, what Wilson said. I’m not…” but Jack knew his friend well enough now to know when he was lying. Even in the poor light he could read the truth in his eyes as clearly as he could hear the lie on his lips._

_“Wouldn’t matter if you were. Much better to be a homosexual than an idiot like Wilson.” The relief and thankfulness on Alex’s face lit it up even in the moonlight, and his smile in that dark place was a great and precious thing._

_“Jack?”_

_Jack met his gaze, certain that his face in that moment was giving away more than he would want it to._

_“Thanks.”_

_They didn’t speak again, simply walked, enjoying their quiet understanding until Jack had to leave to take his place on watch. They never spoke of the subject so explicitly again, not in all the later months of killing side by side and watching friends and enemies cut down before their eyes. But from that night on they both knew._

_In some ways, it was enough, but it never stopped the dreams._

“I take it you never acted on your feelings for him?” Phryne interrupted, curious and a little sad.

It seemed doubly unfair that a world which forced young men to kill should also deny them love and comfort whilst they did it. Both tragedies so meaningless, and to Phryne so inconceivably stupid. This was what happened when men were left in charge of things. Although, perhaps if more of the men in charge were less like Dicky Wilson and more like Jack Robinson, they would never have had the damn fool war in the first place.

“I can’t say I wasn’t tempted,” Jack answered honestly, “but if anyone had found out we could have been shot for it, and I had Rosie at home. I already felt I had betrayed her enough.”

“You don’t get to pick and choose who you fall in love with Jack.” She reassured him, as if the evidence for that particular truth wasn’t lying beside him, stroking the back of his calf absentmindedly with her foot.

“No,” he agreed, smiling his tiny, slanted smile as he looked down at her from the pillows of their warm and luxuriously comfortable bed, “although it’s possible my life would be a lot simpler if I could.”

She smirked at him, entirely composed in the face of his teasing. “Possibly, but it would be a lot less fun.”

He kissed her in enthusiastic agreement, a comfortable, sensual kiss, a tender interlude to his story, not a prelude to a more involved distraction. He drew back, enjoying the warmth of her body against his as she snuggled back into the curve of his shoulder, tracing his fingers over her skin for the simple pleasure of being able to touch her. This casual intimacy was something he had never be able to explore with Alex, and Jack wondered, as he had then, what it might have been like, to lie together like this; bare in body and soul, swapping secrets, confident in each other and the connection they shared. In a better world, or another lifetime perhaps, such things might be possible.

“The truth is,” he was hesitant again, delving deeper into parts of his memory that were difficult to uncover, blurred and fractured by trauma into uncertainties and might-have-beens, “we may have done, once.”

“You’re not certain?”

Phryne was not entirely surprised, she knew too well how difficult it could be to recall those times with clarity, how memories, dreams and nightmares, could converge, and whole stretches of time yield nothing but white noise and confusion.

“It was around August, 1918. We were recruited for special duties which sometimes took us away from the front lines.”

“Intelligence work?”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “I can neither confirm nor deny that,” he replied, his face and voice confirming it in every syllable.

She nodded, settling back down to hear the story.

_It was a dead drop mission, a package to be left in a specified place just outside a village a good few miles away from the front. They made it there without incident and completed the drop, seeing nobody along the route, although they had been warned to look out for enemy reconnaissance patrols along the far side of a river which formed an easy path for them to follow. They stuck to it, not wanting to get themselves lost in the French countryside, for all it was far more pleasant than the place they were returning to._

_War had touched the land here too, but more lightly than on the battlefields; they passed deserted farm houses and untended fields, the owners dead or fled, the disused and derelict buildings now home to songbirds and foxes. It was beautiful, and neither Alex nor Jack felt a huge compunction to speed their way back to their debriefing and the ugliness of the trenches. There was a kind of freedom out here together, walking quietly, or sharing their thoughts. Jack noted the different plants they passed as they moved with care through overgrown woods and fields._

_Alex complained at first that Jack’s obsession with reciting the Latin name for every bush and tree en route was getting in the way of an otherwise lovely afternoon, but relented when his friend found something edible on one of them. They walked along munching contentedly on bilberries, which supposedly improved the eyesight and, more importantly, were also delicious. The sun was high and hot, and the relief from the shade of the trees was only slight, biting midges and mosquitos adding their own brand of irritation to the discomfort of the heat. It reminded Jack of home, the summers in Melbourne could be sweltering, and often humid with it. This was a mostly dry heat, but the river sparkled, fresh and clear. A tempting prospect._

_“It’s no good, mate. It’s too fucking hot, I’m going in.” Alex finally announced, wiping the sweat from his brow - a little overdramatically in Jack’s opinion - leaving a slight smear where the dust of travel clung to his sun browned skin._

_Jack glanced up and down the river where the bank met the edge of the little wood they were walking through. It was completely deserted and there had been no sign of any civilians all day, let alone the enemy patrols they had been warned about._

_“I think we could risk it,” he responded, cautiously._

_Jack was focused on the potential relief of jumping into cool water, which had been at the forefront of his mind for hours in the blazing August heat, and had not really considered what would come next. Alex shrugged out of his jacket and shoved it, along with his pack under a tree. As he stripped off his shirt, baring well-muscled shoulders dusted with light brown freckles, Jack felt his mouth go dry. He swallowed, turning away and began to strip off, mentally listing the Latin names of every piece of flora or fauna they had encountered that day in an attempt not to think about the very definite effect that little glimpse of bare skin was having on his body._

_He undressed slowly, not turning around until he heard the splash that indicated Alex had jumped into the water._

_“Hurry up you lazy bastard!” Alex seemed almost giddy with delight, the sound a world away from the darkness and the violence that was their day to day existence._

_Jack rolled his eyes and turned around, intending to make an acidic comment about the man’s impatience. It never came. Alex was laughing, splashing about in the cool water, diving under the smooth surface of the slow moving river, the clear water revealing tantalising glimpses of his bare arse as he did so. He emerged, beaming in irrepressible joy and blinked sparkling droplets from his lashes._

_Jack’s face froze into a perfect, terrified blank._

_Alex looked up at him still standing on the bank, stark naked and utterly exposed, blushed bright scarlet to the roots of his hair and looked away._

_‘Well,’ thought Jack ‘at least I’m not the only one.’ He was not exactly sure that made it any better._

_Feeling that a dose of cold water might be a good idea at this point, Jack jumped in, relishing the relief from the heat of the sun and the fresh, clean feel of the current against his naked skin. He struck out towards the opposite bank, swimming with strong, even strokes, avoiding looking at Alex for as long as possible whilst he attempted to get his body back under control. Alex did not attempt to draw his attention, his laughter muted as he swam up river against the current then floated back down, lazing on his back._

_Having made it to the far bank, his muscles aching pleasantly with the exertion, Jack turned around and began the return journey, only to find Alex nowhere to be seen. Uncertain, he put his feet on the river bed, the water flowing above his waist at its deepest point._

_“Alex?” he called softly, looking up to the far bank to see if his friend had gotten out of the water._

_A pair of strong arms seized him around the legs underwater and pulled him off his feet, his head sinking beneath the surface for a moment before he could right himself, spluttering curses, to look straight into Alex’s laughing eyes._

_“You utter bastard, McGuff, you are going to pay for that!” he couldn’t help laughing himself, part in amusement, part in relief at seeing the man safe._

_Alex made a break for it but Jack was faster, leaping forward he caught up easily, knocking Alex off his feet and dunking him under, crowing in victory. Alex righted himself swiftly and splashed Jack full in the face. They ducked and dived through the sunny afternoon, happy to replace the all too real fighting that had been their lives for too many years with this joyful parody of violence, laughing together like truanting schoolboys, unfettered by the cares of men. Eventually, wheezing through smoker’s lungs and weeping tears of laughter, Alex called a halt to their loving little war._

_“Alright, alright, you win! I surrender.”_

_He held out a hand in defeat, pushing Jack gently away, and somehow that light touch, entirely innocent in its intent, drove all the remaining air from Jack’s lungs. They were so close now he could see the little beads of water clinging to Alex’s eyelashes and the little flecks of green in his hazel eyes. Jack swallowed hard, wanting nothing more in that moment than to reach out and touch him, to find amidst all this ugliness and desolation one shining moment of beauty and joy. He was afraid. Afraid for what it meant for himself, the kind of man he was and wanted to be, afraid of the consequences of action, or of inaction. That fear was reflected unobscured in Alex’s face, and there was something else, desire, a pleading, desperate need for him to close the distance between them, even if only for a moment._

_Jack was poised on a knife edge, his breath short; he forced himself to think of Rosie, to think of his duty to their mission and the consequences for himself and for Alex if they were caught, but they were all alone here, already shirking their responsibilities, and Rosie was a world away, a fairy tale he told himself late at night to banish the all too real ghosts which haunted his days, and Jack had been a soldier too long to really believe in fairy tales any longer._

_He dropped his gaze, unable to meet Alex’s eyes, unwilling to let him read the temptation on his face; the private war raging between his heart and head, disrupting the equanimity of his ordinarily stoical features. This turned out to be a mistake; the clear water of the river distorted but did not conceal Alex’s naked body, and want, unassailable, carnal, and brutal in its honesty flooded through him. Slowly Jack raised his head, his body swaying incrementally forwards._

_A shot rang out on the far bank. Both Jack and Alex dropped like stones and hugged the surface of the river. There were voices away to their left, the opposite direction to the one in which they had left their clothes. They were speaking German. Glancing up and confirming that no-one was visible, Alex cocked his head towards the right hand bank, indicating they should get out of the open whilst they were still undetected, Jack nodded and followed him, still crouched low in the water. The snap back to the need for survival was instinctual and absolute. The tiny golden moment of might have been, suspended briefly in time like the drops of water still clinging to Alex’s lashes, fell down unheeded to merge with the river as it flowed out to sea._

_When they reached the opposite bank they paused in the cover of some rushes to listen again; the voices were still audible across the water, close but out of sight. They were outnumbered by at least three men and the enemy soldiers made no attempt at concealment. Jack nodded to the bank and clambered up, slipping silently into the trees before pulling on shirt and trousers over wet skin. Alex joined him and Jack bent in close, speaking softly into his ear._

_“They didn’t see us. One of them shot a pigeon, that’s what they were shouting about. They must be looking for dinner.”_

_“We should move off.”_

_“They’re looking for somewhere to cross, it’s shallow here, they could come over just about anywhere in front or behind us and there’s more open country ahead. We should find somewhere to hide up and move on after dark, I don’t want to risk running into them if we can help it.”_

_Alex nodded, “how about that abandoned farmhouse? It’s only a quarter-mile back up the trail.”_

_“Lay on, McGuff.” Jack gave a little smile, far too pleased with this pun for Alex’s liking._

_“Funny,” he grumbled sarcastically, “did you never work out why I preferred the fucking comedies?”_

_The abandoned farmhouse had very little in the way of roof; the dilapidated slate had fallen inwards during the winter snows and lay in a sharp heap in what might once have been a kitchen. Having explored the area swiftly, they took refuge in the hayloft of the barn which was further back from the path and waited, ears alert for any sign of danger._

_It was late afternoon and still hot; the little stone building provided some relief and it was comfortable enough that sleep was a temptation. Alex suggested they set a watch and take the opportunity if they were going to march on in the dark and Jack agreed, trying his hardest to ignore the tingle that spread over his skin as he felt Alex’s breath against his ear. Having plenty available, they drew straws and Jack took first watch, his gaze lingering longer than it should have on the play of shadow and light the creeping vines at the window cast over his friend’s face as he slept, his brown hair curling up and peeling away from his forehead as it dried._

_He woke Alex an hour before dusk, wanting to get a little rest himself before they moved on. He could hear as he drifted off, Alex reciting quietly to himself, staring out of the little window at the heavens beyond._

_“I never saw a man who looked_

_With such a wistful eye_

_Upon that little tent of blue_

_Which prisoners call the sky,_

_And at every drifting cloud that went_

_With sails of silver by.”_

 

_“I thought you preferred the comedies?” Jack mumbled, his face partially buried in dry straw._

_“I do,” he replied, sadly, “but the tragedies do stay with you.”_

_Not having an answer that would do anything but grieve them both, Jack nestled more comfortably into the straw and went to sleep._

_***_

_He thought perhaps that he awoke, later in the dark. An owl screeched outside and he could see the sword of Orion, the bright pin pricks against the black the only indication of where the window was. Rolling over, he found Alex, still awake, watching him. It was too dark to make out his expression clearly, but Jack felt the tentative press of slender fingers as, shyly, Alex reached out and bridged the gap between them. Jack did not push him away, instead he allowed himself to gently caress the palm of Alex’s hand, tracing the life line and the little scars, drawing it slowly up to his mouth and brushing a kiss against the very tips of his fingers._

_They moved closer, still slow and terribly afraid; their kisses were hesitant at first, but not for long. That touch, long denied and desperately wanted, was like a blinding flash of light in that dark place, and for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, Jack no longer felt like a dead man. There was life and blood coursing through him, pulsing and certain; he forgot caution, forgot duty and consequences, he forgot Rosie. There was nothing in his world but Alex, and the tender way he cupped Jack’s cheek as he kissed him. Alex tasted of wild grapes and dry biscuit and Jack’s body, lean and hardened by war, felt soft in supplication as he pressed himself closer, his hands moving down to explore the taught ridges of muscle hidden under rough cotton, still damp from the waters of the river._

_They didn’t speak. Not when Alex pulled Jack’s hand down between them, pressing it to his stiffened cock, encouraging him to unbuckle his belt and draw him out. Not when he wrapped his hand around Jack’s, showing him how he liked to be touched. The feel of him hard and desperate against his skin was indescribable; unknown and yet familiar, debauched, illicit and dangerous, the excitement of the forbidden made richer by the weight of a potent and unacknowledged love. The warmth of Alex’s release as it ran over Jack’s hand felt like a blessing and a benediction; somewhere in his fragmented and unfocused thoughts he caught himself wondering if that precious baptism of life and love could ever be enough to wash away the blood his hands were soaked in._

_Alex rolled Jack onto his back and began kissing him as if it was their last night on Earth and they the only two people in the world. Jack had almost forgotten the feeling of being touched like this, of feeling loved and cherished and wanted by another person; it was more than he deserved. Guilt would come later, some part of him knew, but not yet. Alex had abandoned the tremulous, uncertain touches with which they had begun and was stroking Jack through the fabric of his trousers, sure and relentless. Jack wanted to beg, wanted to plead for Alex to draw him out, to touch him, to fuck him, but he could not speak, overwhelmed by the rush of sensation and emotion, flooding into the cold soul that had for years been buried far beneath the surface of his mind. As if connected to his thought on some level deeper than the words that would not come, Alex pulled Jack free of his trousers, his cock hot and throbbing in the balmy air of the summer night, then moved down and took him in his mouth._

_Jack found his voice long enough to let a stream of curses slip from his lips and after that there was nothing but an all-encompassing bliss that drove out every care and regret until he was moaning and shaking as his lover’s hands and tongue drew him to ecstasy and he spent inside his mouth; biting his lip against the shout of release that threatened to bring the building down around them._

_They covered up and held each other, still in silence, and drifted off to sleep, too sated to reflect yet on what this meant._

_***_

_Jack was woken by Alex shaking his shoulder._

_“Time to move on I think. No sign of anyone all night, I don’t think we’ll be spotted.”_

_Orion was no longer visible out of the window, but whether he had never been there or whether the clouds had covered him Jack was not certain._

_“Did we…was I awake, before?” he asked, his voice cracked and groggy from sleep._

_“No, you’ve been snoring for hours, you noisy sod.” He sounded amused, no tension or discomfort in his tone._

_Jack looked at him curious and uncertain; Alex’s face was in shadow, and it was too dark in the barn to see any of the little tells that might have told Jack if he was lying. He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his face, feeling grimy and unclean in the sticky heat of the humid night. He half hoped, half feared that he would detect the remnants of their love making on his hands, but found nothing conclusive, just the scent of sweat and dust, mingled with the clean smell of hay._

“Do you think it was a dream?” Phryne asked, looking up into Jack’s face with curious eyes, trying to read his mind before he spoke.

“I’m not sure, for a moment when I woke up I was certain it had really happened, but it wouldn’t have been the first time I’d dreamed about him…that way.”

There was a familiar frown creasing the space between Jack’s eyebrows as he considered the problem, able to view the incident and his reaction to it more objectively now it was at a distance.

“I don’t think I wanted it to have happened. I didn’t want to be that kind of man. Rosie, she deserved better.”

His observation was more thoughtful than self-recriminating even as he realised the truth of it. His feelings for Alex had not been the frustrated desires of a man kept too long from the company of his wife. They were deep and complex, a love affair in all but name, with or without that somewhat less than gaudy night. Admitting that at the time, even to himself, complicated a life which had already felt less than real, a staccato of faded photographs papering the walls of his mind.

“We all did what we had to do to survive that war, Jack. It seems to me you found something out there worth having, which is more than most of us did. No-one can fault you for that.”

Phryne was firm in her assessment, unwilling to let any self-recrimination linger where it had no place. Jack weighed her words, knowing she was right but still uncertain if he could find solace in them.

“I think, now, after all that’s happened since. I’d like to think it was real, I’d like to think he knew how much I cared about him, how important he was to me.”

The realisation that he wanted to lay claim to this part of his history was as much a surprise as a relief; at some point in the intervening years his understanding of what was important, of the man he was and wished to be, had altered, leaving room for this old love, bittersweet perhaps but real, and something they both had needed at the time. The place inside where he had locked these memories away felt tender, like new skin healed beneath a wound, but it was no longer a source of pain or guilt – but then, these memories were the happy ones, the later ones were not.

Phryne stroked the contemplative frown from his forehead, sweeping back his hair where it had tumbled free. 

“I’m sure he knew, Jack. Whatever happened that night, I’m sure he knew how you felt.”

They lay quietly for a little while, each lost in thought; Phryne was smiling to herself, imagining her Jack, younger and perhaps more carefree, with his beautiful lover (there was no question in her mind that Alex had been beautiful), cavorting naked in a river on a summer’s day. It was a delightful image and one she thought she might return to, but Jack’s story wasn’t finished yet and she was waiting for the other shoe to drop before she teased him about it. Jack was thinking of Alex’s laugh, and the way he used to swear under his breath as he rolled a cigarette, as if cursing the thing into existence. For the first time since before he had left France, those thoughts made him smile.

“Jack,” Phryne’s voice was hesitant but she couldn’t help but ask, “did Alex come home?”

Jack sighed heavily, his eyes filling now with pain and part of her wished she hadn’t spoken at all.

“He did. Earlier that I did.”

“He was wounded?”

Jack nodded, “gas attack, I wasn’t with him. One of the officers found him along with six other men, all dead, and he got shipped off to a field hospital. I never said goodbye.”

“Oh Jack, I’m so sorry.”

“I saw him again.” This time there was unmistakable bitterness in his tone, clearly it had not been a happy reunion.

_In the months immediately following Alex’s departure Jack had been simply numb, unable to process his loss as he went through his days on rote, reverting to his habit of peering out at the world from deep inside his own head. No-one was more surprised than he was when he survived the war, but survive he did, and along with a multitude of other soldiers he was sent to Paris to await the ship which would take him home. Back to Melbourne, and to Rosie._

_The demobbing of soldiers and the journey by boat back to Australia had taken months, even after the war was over. It was close to a year since he had last seen Alex; he had not heard from him or been able to get a satisfactory answer as to what had happened after his evacuation, which had been less than a month after their adventure by the river. In all likelihood he was dead. If he was recovered or recovering, he had not contacted Jack to tell him so._

_Jack had had time to consider his marriage, in the long months between the end of the war and his return, and had concluded that whatever had passed was past. He may have had feelings for Alex - in the honest recesses of his heart he knew he did - but those feelings belonged firmly to the world of war, a living hell he was happy to leave behind. Beyond the questions of his duty to his wife, the law - which was, after all, his stock and trade – stood firmly against any comforting fantasy he might have indulged in at the front. He would go home, back to Rosie, and he would start living again. It was an entirely rational argument and as such utterly irrelevant, but Jack was – as Alex had frequently remarked with great fondness – “the most stubborn piece of shit Australia ever shat out,” and he was determined to make the attempt._

_When he returned to Melbourne there was a joyful crowd assembled on the dock to welcome the soldiers home. His mother and sister were there to greet him. And Rosie. Rosie, looking infinitely more beautiful than any fantasy or fairy tale he had conjured up in her absence. He swept her into his arms when he met her and kissed her full on the lips and in full view of her father. Some people in the crowd cheered. When he pulled back, she was weeping happy tears and trying her best to hide them. He kissed them away and buried his face in her hair, remembering at last what it smelled like. It smelled like home._

_The delight of their reunion was short lived. Rosie was so pleased to have him back; their lives had been cruelly interrupted and now that the war was over she was impatient for them to begin again. Jack would to return to work, he would accompany her to all the significant events on Melbourne’s social calendar, and with her help he could impress the influential people who would help him to advance. They could have a bigger house, a family, all the things they had dreamed of before he went away. He wanted more than anything to want to give her those things, but what he wanted for himself, was simply to be left alone. To be allowed to sit, quietly, with a book and a glass of whiskey, enjoying the peace he had earned through years of blood and toil._

_Selfishly perhaps, Jack took Alex’s words to heart “you can’t live a whole life for other people” he had said. And so Jack didn’t. He took his peace. Took it, not at the expense of the Kaiser or the Germans, or even the Allied Officers, whose collective military incompetence was at least as deadly as the enemy. No. He took his peace at the expense of the woman who would hold him in the night when he woke up, shaking in a cold sweat, the taste of blood in his mouth and the screams of dead men in his ears. He took his peace, and so she never got her dreams._

_It wasn’t fair. Very little is._

_He started to dream about Alex again. Not the dreams which had at first shamed and then comforted him in France; these were ugly things, full of horror and loss. He would be searching for his friend through endless muddy trenches, barely able to move, hearing his cries for help but unable to reach him. Or he would find him dead amongst the faces of the boys he had signed up with, the ones lost early in the war. Once he dreamed they were back in the river under hot sunshine, close enough to touch. The flecks of green in Alex’s eyes were lit up and sparkling, then the sun went behind a cloud and his face, so close to Jack’s he could feel warm breath against his lips, twisted in rigor mortis, the eyes blank, unseeing, and crawling with decay. The panic that gripped him as he woke was so intense it made him vomit, heaving and coughing as Rosie stroked his hair in tender, heartbroken sympathy._

_He began to search for Alex, taking advantage of police resources when off duty, and sometimes whilst on duty and no-one was watching. Rosie encouraged him, at least at first, happy he had found something which seemed to draw him back towards the world. She was less certain after her father complained, saying he was wasting a fine mind, well suited to police work, on a fool’s errand. Jack himself was uncertain why he had developed this obsession, and he did not know what would happen if he found Alex, dead or alive. He only knew this was a path he had to follow, that he needed to know the truth, however ugly, and that he found a satisfaction in the process of solving this puzzle, with all its dead ends and bureaucratic contradictions, that had eluded him since before his return to Melbourne. The rational, logical progression of evidence, of cause following effect, catching out the errors and the lies, quieted the confusion in his mind - caught as it was between the nightmare of his past, and a present which all too often felt unreal; as if the tangible world beneath his fingers was nothing but a waking dream, soon to slip away, leaving him once again in hell._

_Unable to track down Alex’s family in Sydney, Jack requested war records and paperwork from overburdened bureaucrats across two continents, pouring over faded copies of documents obtained through quasi-legitimate means. He couldn’t repress a little smile when he finally found the last piece of the puzzle; an army doctor had mistakenly entered the name Alex McDuff, not McGuff, into the official paperwork and all the subsequent records of Alex’s movements had been misfiled. He could easily imagine Alex’s response, and the language he would have chosen to express it in. After that it was easy enough to locate him, he tracked down an address - a sanitorium outside Canberra - apparently the family had moved. Rosie came with him when he went to visit. He had a strange desire to introduce them, perhaps to share with her the one good thing he had found amidst all that horror. She wore her best dress, a present from her mother, far better than anything she could have afforded on Jack’s meagre wage; she looked beautiful in blue, she always looked beautiful. Jack knew he should remember to tell her that more than he did._

_The sanitorium stank of stale piss and sadness, an inauspicious start. They were shown into something called a day room. The peeling paint on the walls had once been white, but had been stained by years and nicotine to a sickly yellow-brown. Alex wasn’t there. There was a man who might have been his ghost. His skin was grey, his body skeletal and hunched, coughing in bloody fits and sucking air down through a mask. The nurses told them he hadn’t spoken whilst he’d been there. Jack sat in a chair opposite the shell of the man who once had been his friend, who might have been his lover and saw within the red rims of his crusted eyes, flecks of green amidst the hazel, lit up by the sun that struggled in through the grubby windows to illuminate his face._

_“Alex?” to Jack’s surprise the man looked up._

_“Alex, it’s Jack.” He reached out, gently, as if to a wild creature who might bolt away at any moment. The man who had been Alex did not shake his hand, but he did not flinch when Jack’s palm covered his where it rested on the table. Jack didn’t know what to do. He had known all along that this path would in all likelihood lead to an ugly end; perhaps he had been a fool to follow it._

_He tried again._

_“Alex, this is Rosie, my wife.” He gestured to her, perched awkwardly in a dress that now seemed too fine amidst the squalor of the place, trying hard to be supportive, wanting desperately to leave._

_Alex glanced towards her. Nodded. Looked back at Jack, seemed to reach some kind of decision. Still unspeaking he rose and walked over to a card table in the corner of the room, when he returned he was carrying a draughts set. He arranged the pieces with a careful deliberation, so unlike the slapdash joy with which he used to move. They played in silence for an hour, then doctors came with medication to chase them out._

_Jack would visit after that, whenever time and finances allowed, poking at that old connection like a loose tooth, looking for something and someone that never returned from France, uncertain if that someone was Alex or himself. Rosie did her best to understand; more than once she sold her jewellery to cover the cost of his travel and never let him know. But as time went on she found it harder and harder to watch him spend an alarming portion of the little money they had, crossing the country to play a silent board game with a man who barely seemed to know that he was there. To her the whole business seemed like just another refusal by her husband to come home from muddy trenches she had never walked in to stand on firm ground beside his wife. Eventually she told him so in anger, and part of Jack never could forgive her, not least because he knew that she was right._

“He didn’t live long after I found him again, a little over a year, and he never spoke. I think he knew it was me though, the nurses told me he seemed happier, after I came to visit.”

There was a quiet resignation in the way Jack told the end of his tale that broke Phryne’s heart. He did not need to be told that this outcome was not his fault, he had moved beyond the stage of blaming himself for his own survival, made as much peace with these ghosts as any of them could. Nor did he need to be reminded that this long lost love affair did not make him depraved or immoral. He knew that he was not, had made his peace too with that part of himself, and buried it deep inside, dismissed as something too impractical and inconsistent with his job and the world for him to indulge in. That he was forced to do that made her angry, but that he felt able to share this secret with her was an honour and a privilege, something that she treasured.

“I’m sure he did,” she smoothed the hair back across his forehead, offering what comfort she could. “He must have been an extraordinary man to turn your head, Jack. I wish I could have known him.” She meant it too; idle fantasies of pretty soldier boys aside, she would have loved to meet the man that could charm Jack Robinson, God knew it was hard enough to do.

“And there I was thinking you’d be consumed with jealousy. My pride may never recover.” He deadpanned at her.

Phryne raised an eyebrow, thankful that he seemed happy to return to their teasing, that telling this story had not been the cause of any lingering pain. She sat up in the bed and kissed him with soft deliberation, trying to let him know how much this level of trust from such a careful man meant to her.

“Thank you.”

“Whatever for?”

“For telling me about him, for letting me share this part of you. It can’t have been easy.”

“I’ve never told anyone else, if that’s what you mean. I’ve never known anyone else who would have understood, or would have wanted to hear it.”

“Was he the only one?”

Jack shrugged, “I can appreciate an attractive man,” he narrowed his eyes pointedly at her, “perhaps not quite as well as some, but Alex was the only one I ever fell in love with.”

He had never said those words out loud before. Even with the feelings he related so far in the past, there was a kind of liberation in being able to tell that truth, perhaps it didn’t make a difference, but for him it was important. The acknowledgement that this transient and subjective portion of his history held the certainty of something tangible and good allowed that murky corner of his past to gain the quality of solid ground. A place from which the man he was had grown.

“You know, I would never want you to feel you needed to deny yourself experiences if you wanted to explore them, Jack. Perhaps together?” Phryne’s suggestion was tentative, but it needed to be made. She wanted to give Jack everything she could, and this was something that might be within her power.

He pursed his lips, shaking his head. He couldn’t deny the offer was a tempting one in some ways, but realistically he knew it was beyond what he could do. His eyes held an apology; there were some things he knew he would never be able to do for her and this was one of them.

“And how long before the first blackmail letter crossed my desk? I can’t, Phryne, even if I wanted too. I’d be putting myself and anyone else involved in danger.”

It was an injustice but not exactly a disappointment, he was not one of the bright young things they had drunk and danced through London with; he was a careful, private man with responsibilities whose job would make him an ideal target for a blackmailer. He had never been interested in casual dalliances and would hardly risk his liberty, or that of those he cared for, for the sake of carnal pleasure.

It wasn’t fair. Very little was.

“I wish I could change the laws for you, Jack.” Her eyes held nothing but respect and understanding. She could not hold this caution against him and the offer had been for his benefit, as much as she might have enjoyed the possibilities it held.

He quirked a smile, remembering the time, soon after they had met, when he had expressed the that sentiment to her.

“Or find a way around them?”

“Oh that I’m sure I could do.”

“Not far enough I’m afraid. Besides,” he kissed her, filling the action with a world of love and gratitude for her and everything she was, “you’re more than enough of an experience for me.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was a tricky one for me to write. It's something I've been mulling over since before I found the fandom and after I did realised that quite a few people have considered the idea of Jack as bisexual (and have written some delicious fic on the topic). Somehow they never quite worked for me. I felt uncomfortable at the idea of having to ignore the way the anti-sodomy laws and the blackmail that often accompanied them, would intersect with Jack as a very cautious man, who doesn't tend to take risks for the sake of short term gratification and who I can't see as being comfortable with putting someone he loved in danger.
> 
> Being bi myself, and married to a bi man, I wanted to write something which was less about the undeniable hotness that is M/M Jack-fic, and more about what being like me and my husband would actually be like for that character. Any way I sliced it I couldn't see it being a happy story, but I think it is one which speaks to the self erasure which can happen, in particular to bisexuals who end up in monogamous relationships with people presenting as the opposite sex. For Jack of course this comes with the added dumb-fuckery that he really never had a meaningful choice in terms of exploring that part of his sexuality.
> 
> All of the thanks to Firesign, Inzannatea and mercurialbianca - as well as anyone else who let me talk their ear off on slack in order to work this through.


End file.
